Woman Out of Time
by romulea
Summary: Lucy Howard finds herself in a strange new world after a nuclear bomb hit Boston. She's lost - not out of place, but out of time. She's promised her late husband that she'll find whoever killed him and took her baby, but will she have the strength that it takes? Or will the vicious wasteland of The Commonwealth kill her?
1. Prologue

The day started off innocently enough. Lucy Howard woke up before her husband, Nate, and took a moment to watch him sleep. His nightmares from the war were becoming less and less frequent. When he had first come home, he woke up screaming and sweating more nights than not, his hazel blue eyes wide open but seeing some horror from war instead of their bedroom. She did her best to comfort him on those nights, holding him tight and stroking his soft black hair while she whispered soothing things into his ear.

But for now, his face was peaceful, eyes flickering behind their lids while Nate dreamed away. Lucky matched her breathing to his own, stroking his face gently for a moment. Next month would make it seven years that they'd been married but every time she saw him she fell in love with him all over again. A faint smile passed over her lips as she remembered the day he'd asked her to marry him. It'd been after Thanksgiving dinner with his family. He took her aside and down the hall to his bedroom, pretending he'd needed her help looking for something. While he rifled around in his closet, he asked her to check his top drawer in his dresser. Sitting there on top of his clothes was a small black box. She lifted it out gingerly, hand shaking slightly, and turned around to find him down on one knee. When they returned to the living room, his entire family cheered and clapped while she practically beamed with joy.

The soft cries of her son broke her out of her reverie. She sighed and gave Nate's cheek one last stroke before rolling over and swinging her legs out of bed. She sat for a moment, trying to remember what it was like to sleep in. At least they'd been able to sleep through the nights since their purchase of their Mr. Handy robot, Codsworth. As she pulled on clothes, she heard faint mechanical whirring as he sprung to life in their laundry room. By the time she opened the door, Codsworth was already in Shaun's room, trying in vain to placate him with a bottle.

"Good morning, Miss Lucy," Codsworth greeted, turning one eye to face her.

"Morning, Codsworth," Lucy returned, stepping over to the end of Shaun's crib.

"Sorry, mum, but the little tyke seems to be uncooperative."

Lucy gave him a small nod, smiling to show there were no hard feelings. The robot was easy to work into a tizzy if he failed to accomplish the household tasks they assigned to him. "Don't worry about it. I'll take over from here. You can go get breakfast ready."

He turned, handing over the bottle with a blink of his three eyes. "Yes, mum. Right away."

She stepped to where he had been, setting the bottle down in the crib momentarily while she picked up Shaun. His crying faded into unhappy gurgles and his eyes slowly opened as he was comforted in his mother's warm embrace. "Hey little guy," Lucy murmured, picking up the bottle while bouncing Shaun gently. "Are you hungry?"

Shaun cooed and let out a sigh that seemed befit for a world-weary, middle aged man. "It's just so tough being a baby, I know," she continued in a soothing voice, hoping that they hadn't woke Nate up. She held up the plastic nipple to his mouth and Shaun accepted it, content now that he had both is mother and some food.

She sat down as she fed him, giving him a small kiss on his forehead before looking up at the window out into their back yard. The October leaves had turned to brilliant jewel tones and rustled slightly in the breeze. They had moved to Sanctuary Hills shortly after Nate had been dishonorably discharged, eager to start their new lives together in the quiet little cul-de-sac. On warm days she liked to open the windows and let in the sounds of the neighborhood: housewives chatting, children playing, and the faint sound of the nearby river running. It always brought her peace.

Lucy closed her eyes as she thought about her life. When Nate had been sent away to fight in the war, every day was filled with worry that he wouldn't come back to her. She begged him not to go to Alaska when he was assigned to the Anchorage Front Line several years after China invaded. She told him that he could go AWOL and they'd run away together to some little tropical island that had been left untouched by the war. His sense of duty and honor had been too great, though, and he had been insulted at her suggestion.

Despite coming from a military family (or perhaps in spite of it), Lucy had always been a pacifist. She had joined the beatniks in college, though she often found them to be only pseudo-intellectuals and irritatingly haughty. Her father had nearly disowned her when she joined the small, ever-receding groups of anti-war protesters. She understood that they needed to protect themselves from the Chinese invaders. That was just a fact. But she found America's actions towards its allies, especially Canada, to be reprehensible. She could hardly believe it when she found herself falling in love with a soldier.

After nearly three years of him taking tours in Alaska and China, Nate had returned home right after Canada had been annexed. He'd been wounded and nearly died and was sent home with a small box full of medals and the title of "war hero." She felt a strange mix of relief and fury when she greeted him at the airport, only managing to say "You idiot," before she wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace, crying into his chest until she had no more tears left to cry.

From the moment he was home, Lucy didn't want to be parted from him. For weeks, she was constantly trying to maintain contact in small ways – holding hands on the couch, cuddling next to him in bed, or just brushing against him when they passed each other in the house. During that time was when they conceived Shaun. A little too much concealed wine in the nearby park had left them both tipsy and hungry for each other. She still blushed at the memory of them trying and failing to be sneaky as they entered a Pulowski Preservation shelter, handsy as a pair of teenagers.

"Morning, gorgeous." Nate's baritone voice, husky with sleep, caught her attention.

She turned her head to look at him, a warm smile breaking across her lips when she saw him leaning forward against the door frame. "Morning, handsome. Sleep well?"

He nodded and pushed himself back with his forearm. His jaws and cheeks were covered in a slight stubble. She was a fan of the look, but Nate would no doubt do a clean shave before his speech tonight. He was ever the properly groomed soldier. "I did. I was dreaming about the day we met."

Lucy let out a pleased little hum at his response, though anything he dreamed about was better than his PTSD induced nightmares. "Ready for your big speech tonight?"

Nate winced in response. She knew he didn't like the attention, but he had felt it was a big honor to be asked to speak at the Veteran's Hall in Concord and he'd been unable to turn it down. "You'll do great," she assured him with a warm smile, placing the empty bottle on the table next to her and bringing Shaun up to her shoulder to burp him.

"Let's hope so," he replied while leaning down to give her and Shaun both a kiss on the top of the head. "I'm going to hop in the shower and start getting ready."

Lucy nodded as she patted Shaun's back gently, coaxing a couple small burps and a small amount of spit-up out of him. "Make sure you hurry up, unless you want me to go smelling like baby puke," she called after him as he headed toward the bathroom. At least Shaun's spit-up was one of the least offensive things that came out of him.

Soon he was sleeping again and she placed him in his crib, watching him fondly for a moment before heading into her bedroom to change. For now she went with some casual wear, putting off choosing a dress until later that evening. She wondered vaguely if she'd have time to head over to Fallon's in Concord to pick out a new dress when she heard the shower turn off. At the very least, she should get her hair and makeup in order. She chose a record from her old collection as she waited for Nate to get dressed and open the bathroom door.

She was proud of her record collection, despite how small it was. She'd collected most of them during her protest days. Most of them were rare records of unpopular folk and psychedelic bands that had only gained traction in the small pockets of countercultures that shrank with every year the war raged on. Nate often poked fun at her for not listening to music on holotapes like the rest of the world did, but there was just something about the sound of vinyl records that appealed to her. Of course, she had them recorded to holotapes just in case anything should happen to them. And despite the anti-war themes present in some of the songs, even Nate admitted to enjoying a few of the bands.

Music was one of her few passions in life, the love of it imparted on her by her maternal grandmother. Even after she drew away from the counter-culture groups she once belonged to, she still found herself in clubs playing music that never would have found its way onto the radio. Outside of her record collection, she had perhaps hundreds of holotapes with a vast array of music on them. Her tastes ranged all over the place – from country to rock-and-roll to jazz and a little bit of everything in between. Her most prized possessions was an expensive crystal holodisk that contained her entire music library. It contained almost a full 2 terabytes of songs that she'd collected over the years and was locked away in the same safe where Nate kept his pistol.

This morning she selected an old blues record. It just didn't seem right to play Creedence Clearwater Revival when Nate was preparing himself for giving a speech. She hummed along as she headed into the bathroom, sneaking up behind Nate as he wiped the fog from the mirror.

She stayed back as he muttered to himself. "War never changes..." She frowned for a moment before sidling up next to him, hoping to break him out of the foul mood that seemed to be brewing in him.

"You're gonna knock 'em dead at the Veteran's Hall tonight, hon," she told him, looking at him in the mirror with a supportive smile.

"You think?" he asked, looking at her for a moment before turning back to face the mirror.

"Absolutely." She winked and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. "Now get ready and stop hogging the mirror."

"Right," he replied with a quick smile though his features quickly became serious as he studied himself in the mirror, shaving off the stubble while Lucy admired him from over his shoulder. His brows were thick, hanging heavy over his hazel blue eyes. Despite just having turned thirty, there were deep creases between those brows. His nose was strong and aquiline and his lips were soft and full. Her eyes lingered there, eager to give him a kiss once they were finished getting ready, before traveling back up to his. "Your eyes... they're one of my favorite things about you," she chimed, earning a small smile from him as he rinsed off the shaving cream. "They're the reason I said yes when you asked me out."

He smiled, shaking his head as he pulled out the pomade to style his hair back. "I thought you said it was my great ass?"

"Hmm... That too," she replied with another wink, tempted to reach out and give it a squeeze.

He rinsed his hands and returned the pomade to its place in the medicine cabinet. Lucy stepped forward as he stepped to the side. "My turn, big guy." Nate took his place where she once stood, watching with interest as she got ready.

She washed her face and moisturized, looking up to the hall every now and then as Codsworth bustled about the house. She studied her own features as she applied her makeup. Her own eyes were a light green ringed in a darker green with small flecks of blue and gold and she wore black browline glasses due to poor vision. Her lashes were thick but needed to be curled in order to show off their length. Her nose was on the wider side, though Nate often said it was cute whenever she bemoaned it. The bridge was slightly crooked from the only time she'd ever been in a fist fight. Overall, her face was more rectangular than ovular, with a broad jaw and chin. She envied her neighbor, Mrs. Sumner, for her round face and high cheekbones. Her hair was a mousy, ashy blonde and she often considered dying it red.

She pulled out the curling iron, giving Nate a quick kiss before plugging it in. "You go ahead and get breakfast. This might take a bit." Nate nodded and wandered into the kitchen as she curled her hair. Even if she thought the whole event tonight was ridiculous, she wanted to look as good as she could sitting next to him in front of all those people.

Half an hour and a tired arm later, she headed into the kitchen to join Nate. Codsworth greeted her with a pot of fresh coffee in one hand. "Your coffee. One hundred seventy three point five degrees Fahrenheit, brewed to perfection."

She took it gratefully, grabbing a mug off the table to pour a cup. "Thanks, Codsworth."

"Of course, Miss Lucy." With that, Codsworth returned to the small pile of dishes next to the sink.

Lucy brought the mug up to her mouth and breathed in the heady aroma before taking a sip. Her law school days had been fueled by gallons upon gallons of coffee. Back then, she took whatever swill would give her enough caffeine to make it through countless all-nighters, adding in so much creamer to cover the bitterness that she wasn't sure if the buzz was from the coffee itself or the excessive amounts of sugar. This coffee wasn't much better, but at least it wasn't as bitter with Codsworth brewing it at the right temperature. Perhaps once she started working again she could splurge on some better beans.

She leaned against the counter, lazily leafing through the Grognak comic as Nate flipped through the paper. Lucy liked to tease Nate about his comic collection just as much as he teased her about her records. __Grognak the Barbarian and the Jungle of the Bat-Babies__ _,_ she mused to herself with a small laugh, flipping back to the front cover to take in the ridiculous art. Before she had the chance to tease him about his choice in barbarian characters, Shaun started crying.

"Ah, sounds like someone made a stinky! I shall attend to young Shaun," the Mr. Handy robot chimed, setting aside the dishes to hover off to Shaun's room. Lucy sat her coffee down with a sigh. She couldn't imagine what life would be like without having the extra help.

As if sensing her thought, Nate looked up from the paper. "I know we were nervous at first, but I'm glad we got Codsworth."

Lucy gave a quiet murmur of agreement as she looked to the television set. There'd been so many worries despite General Atomics's assurances that their robots were top-of-the-line and perfectly safe. Could Shaun be pacified by something made of cold metal? What happened if Codsworth went on the fritz? Those appendages could be awfully dangerous if something malfunctioned and he went haywire. But so far their worries had been calmed and with every minute of down-time or sleep Lucy got she was more and more grateful for their purchase. Perhaps, once she and Nate both returned to the work force, they could look into purchasing a Miss Nanny well.

She grabbed the discarded bits of the paper that Nate had set aside and sat on the couch, hardly paying attention to the words that she read. It was all the same these days. The resource wars still raged on. Even here, in the midst of their peaceful little suburb, it was hard to ignore. It had been over a week since she'd last spoken to her father when she dared to suggest that maybe America should lend a helping hand to China when it came to fusion energy. It could be the olive branch the world so desperately needed. He had yelled at her for it, calling her a "Commie sympathizer" before hanging up abruptly. She knew it was naive of her but she couldn't understand why America couldn't lift up the rest of the world instead of trying to conquer it.

The ring of the doorbell brought a welcome distraction to her thoughts. Nate heaved a sigh and placed the paper on the counter as Lucy stood. "It's that salesman again. I don't know why he keeps bothering you."

She shrugged and rolled her eyes, putting on what she hoped passed for a polite smile as she opened the door.

The salesman gave a tip of his hat and stepped forward. "Good morning!" he greeted in a cheery voice. "Vault-Tec calling!"

Not one to be impolite, Lucy replied with a smile of her own. "Good morning."

"Isn't it? Just look at the sky out there!" He cleared his throat, seemingly uncomfortable with the situation. "You can't begin to know how happy I am to finally speak with you. I've been trying for days. It's a matter of utmost urgency, I assure you."

A small amount of guilt welled up in her stomach as she recalled the handful of times she and Nate had previously avoided his attempts at soliciting them. "Then I'm glad you caught up with me," she replied, making a point to ignore Nate's frustrated groan from across the room.

"Now, I know you're a busy woman, so I won't take up much of your time. Time being a, um, precious commodity..." The way he phrased it sent a shiver down Lucy's spine. Perhaps it was what he intended. There was no better way to get someone to sign up for a place in one of those vaults than make them think that a nuclear armageddon was just around the corner. "I'm here today to tell you that because of your family's service to our country, you have been pre-selected for the entrance into the local Vault: Vault 111."

Lucy gave a worried look back at Nate who simply rolled his eyes and went back to staring at the paper. She turned back to the Vault-Tec representative, beginning to think that perhaps signing up for a space in the vault wasn't such a bad idea after all. "But there's room for my entire family, right?" If she was worried about anyone, it was Shaun. Even if the war wound down eventually, who knew what could happen in his life time?

"Of course, of course! Minus your robot, naturally." Just as she was about to inquire about the costs, the representative continued. "In fact, you're already cleared for clearance! It's just a matter of verifying some information. Don't want there to be any hold ups in the unforeseen event of..." He cleared his throat, nervousness clear on his face now. "Um, total atomic annihilation. Won't take but a moment."

She supposed as long as it didn't cost anything, there was no harm in it. She shrugged, stepping a little closer to him in case she needed to fill out any forms. "Sure, let's do it."

After a few minutes of answering some questions about her mental state and her family, the Vault-Tec representative was finished. "Wonderful! That's... everything..." he said, lowering the clipboard to his side and stepping back slowly. Lucy narrowed her eyes slightly at his behavior. Did he know something about the state of affairs? "Just going to talk this over to the Vault! Congratulations on being prepared for the future!" He was already half-way down the road by the time he finished speaking.

Lucy shook her head as she closed the door behind her. "Did he seem... suspicious to you?" she asked Nate as leaned against the back of the couch.

"It's peace of mind," Nate responded as he sat down. "That's worth a little paperwork, right?"

He did have a point. "For you and Shaun, no price is too high." Even if she had to make her way to the vault itself to secure them positions, making sure that they were safe if the unthinkable happened would be worth it.

Nate let out a short laugh, glancing back and forth from her to the television. "Good answer."

Lucy winked, rounding the couch to sit on one of the stools at the counter. "I have my moments."

Shaun's crying reverberated throughout the house just as she finished speaking. Nate made a move to stand up but Lucy made a motion with her hand for him to stay put. Codsworth greeted her as she headed down the hallway.

"Mum, Shaun has been changed but he absolutely refuses to calm down. I think he needs some of that 'maternal affection' you seem to be so good at."

Lucy gave him a tight-lipped smile, not wanting to further the robot's distress. She knew robots were supposed to be the helpers of the future but she had the feeling that their money might have been better spent on a human housekeeper or nanny.

"I'll be there in a second to help," Nate told her as she headed down the hallway and into her son's room.

Every time Lucy stepped into the nursery she inwardly cringed a little at the décor. It had been standard with the "House of Tomorrow" but every time they talked about remodeling, something had always come up. Something was offputting about the way the monkeys on the wallpaper looked like they were screaming as they rode their rocket-ships. She wanted something more along the lines of a Beatrix Potter themed room while Nate still wanted the standard "blue" for boys. She poked fun at him for it, telling him to give up on those antiquated gender roles a little, and suggested using zoo animals as a middle ground. Maybe she would poke around Fallon's if she had the extra time before the speech...

She leaned over Shaun's crib, tickling him a little and making cooing noises. "Hey there sweetie," she spoke as she rubbed her right forefinger over his eyebrows and down his nose.

"My boy isn't giving his mother any trouble, is he?" Lucy looked over her shoulder as her husband leaned against the door frame as he had earlier. Her chest tightened as she watched him watching them. A warm, loving smile relaxed his features, premature crows-feet wrinkling in the corners of his hazel blue eyes. He was just as handsome as the day they had met. If she did make it into Concord, she'd have to pick him up something to show him just how lucky she felt to call him her husband.

"I fixed that mobile on his crib the other day," he continued, making Lucy realize she'd been fawning over him like a schoolgirl. A warm blush creeped across her nose and cheeks and she turned her attention to the little rocket mobile that hung over Shaun. "Why don't you give it a spin?"

She nodded and followed his suggestion, giving it a gentle push to get it in motion. Nate stepped into the room and closed the door behind him as a lullaby played from the mobile.

"That's my boy. On his best behavior, just like his dad." He paused as he stood at the end of the crib, gazing fondly at their son. "Well, most of the time anyway," he said with a smirk as he looked up at Lucy. "Listen, after breakfast, I was thinking we should head to the park for a bit. The weather should hold up."

Lucy returned his smirk as Shaun giggled in his crib, satisfied now that both his parents were with him. "Oh, right. The park. With you. Because I want to get pregnant _again_."

Before Nate had a chance to reply to her quip, Codsworth's worried voice called out to them. "Sir, mum, you should come and see this!" Her heart dropped though she tried to tell herself it must just be a spot the robot couldn't rub out of a plate or something.

"Codsworth, what's wrong?" Nate questioned. The robot didn't answer and Nate shot her a worried look before picking up Shaun. She opened the door to the nursery and headed into the living room with Nate on her heels. The news reporter on the television had a grim look on his face as he read off the latest headlines.

"Followed by yes... Followed by flashes, blinding flashes, sounds of explosions. We are trying to get confirmation, but we seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations."

A chill shot through Lucy's body and Nate spoke up from beside her. "Wait, what did he say?"

"We do have coming in... confirmed reports..." the newscaster continued. "I repeat, confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. My God."

Lucy's body shook as the newscaster placed his head in his hand. The screen went into standby mode and alarms began to sound. Without a second thought, she turned. "We need to get to the vault now!"

Nate was already rushing out the door with their son in his arms. "I've got Shaun!"

She paused only for a moment at the door to look back at Codsworth. "Codsworth, honey, stay safe." With that she made her way out into the street. Mass panic and chaos had erupted. Her neighbors were hugging each other, vertibirds flew over head, and soldiers were directing people to the direction of the local vault. Her heart raced as they ran down the road and up the hill, the only thought on her mind being the worry that they might not make it in time.

When they approached the gate to get to the vault they found the representative that had just greeted them not even an hour ago arguing with the soldiers posted there. "That's absurd. I __am__ Vault-Tec!"

"Sir!" the soldier with the clipboard warned as the two soldiers in suits of power-armor trained their guns on the representative. He backed up with his arms in the air before turning to run, shouting that he would be reporting them as he fled the scene.

Lucy's heart broke for him and the others who were outside the gate. Some were crying while others were sitting quietly, having accepted their fate. She didn't understand why they couldn't just let everyone in. If she didn't have to worry about Nate and Shaun, she would have argued with the soldiers. It was heartless.

She had to remind herself that she couldn't worry about them, though. The safety of her husband and her son were her top priority. She swallowed the lump in her throat and stepped forward as the soldier shouted that only those in the program should step forward and all others should return home.

"We need to get in. We're on the list," Lucy told him, tone aggressive.

"Infant, adult male, adult female..." the soldier spoke, reading off his clipboard. "Okay, go ahead." Was that it? What would have happened if another couple with a child had approached them? Would their spot have been taken?

She had to force herself to stop her thoughts from going down that road. They didn't have the time to spare. She hurried past him with a nod, Nate following behind her. Her husband thanked the soldier and they wished each other good luck. What about everyone else? Had their luck simply ran out?

 _ _I can't think about that now__ she told herself as she ascended the hill.

"What's going to happen to all those people outside the gate?" Nate asked the soldier who led them to the vault.

"We're doing everything we can. Now keep moving!" Lucy doubted that but there was no time for arguing. She simply sent up a silent prayer to whatever god or gods were listening, hoping that Boston would be looked over in the attack. If New York was hit, maybe they would avoid the rest of the east coast?

"Almost there," she said, more to herself than anyone, as she and Nate stepped on the center of the platform. "Is Shaun okay?" she asked as she turned to her husband.

"He's fine," Nate told her in a soothing tone. "We're gonna be okay. I love you."

Just as he finished speaking there was a large flash of light and an explosion to the south. Her mind went numb and her knees shook. The screaming around her was replaced with a ringing in her ears as a mushroom cloud ascended toward the sky. "Hold on!" she yelled, fighting to keep her eyes open despite the light and the shockwaves as she turned to Nate and Shaun. If she was going to die, she wanted to make sure the last thing she saw was them...

By some miracle the elevator made it down into the vault. "We did it. We made it. We're okay..." she murmured as they finished their descent. She couldn't bring herself to think about all the poor souls that had been left behind.

The next few minutes were all a haze to Lucy as she stumbled along the vault induction. Doctors and scientists buzzed around their little group as they made their way deeper in the vault, each one of them being handed vivid blue jumpsuits with the number 111 emblazoned across the back of it. All the while Nate was her port in the storm. He offered her words of comfort as they shuffled along the brightly lit hallways. "It's okay, hun. This is our home now."

Everything they had was now gone. Her record collection, his comics, that hideous wallpaper in Shaun's room. Everything they had worked so hard for was gone in a literal flash.

Her hands started to shake as they entered a room filled with pods. She only vaguely registered what the doctor was telling them as he told them to change into their suits and enter the pods. They would be decontaminated and depressurized before moving deeper into the vault. Just how deep did this vault go?

Shaun's crying brought her out of her haze. She drew in a deep breath, trying to ignore the distinct chemical cleaner smell that lingered in the air, and stepped toward her husband and son. "He's being fussy. Could you...?" Nate asked as he closed the distance between them.

She tickled his tummy for a moment before rubbing his forehead. "Who's my little guy?" Lucy asked, kissing the top of his head gently. "I'm not going far. I'll just be over there." She moved her hand to Nate's upper arm, giving it a quick squeeze. She had to stay strong for them both. They shared a quick kiss as a nearby scientist urged them to hurry into their decontamination pods.

She changed, unworried about decency in the light of what had happened, and settled into the pod. Lucy kept her eyes on Nate, reaching out a hand to the glass as she mouthed 'I love you'.

A faint hiss startled her before she realized it was just the pod, no doubt releasing some sort of chemical designed to kill bacteria. She held her breath for a moment, wondering if the chemicals were safe to breathe. On her exhale she noticed that her breath came out in a fog. The temperature had dropped suddenly. Her brows knitted together as she stared across the hall to Nate and Shaun's pod. Ice crystals had already started spreading out from the edges of the window on his pod. Her look of confusion and worry was the last expression she made before her world went dark.

Lucy was disoriented and stiff when she came to. The sound of footsteps brought her slowly to her senses. She couldn't feel her extremities and the window to the pod was covered in a thick layer of frost. She shivered as she flexed her fingers, willing them to work. Was this what they meant by decontamination? Freezing all the bacteria off? As long as it worked, she supposed she couldn't complain.

She leaned forward a little and scraped the frost off the window. She saw Nate across from her, still holding Shaun. Her heart jumped a little, hoping that Shaun made it through that process okay. She turned her eyes to look at a feminine figure in an odd hazmat suit. She was pointing at Nate. Were they being let out? Another figure joined her. He was dressed in odd clothing, like something out of a movie, and he was carrying a gun. What was happening?

Her heart rate increased and she leaned forward even more as the strange woman opened the door to Nate's pod. He coughed almost stumbled out, asking if the war was over and if they were okay. Lucy put a shaky hand to the window, senses screaming at her that this was all wrong. She wanted to yell, to tell Nate to run and hide, but all she could do was watch as the woman reached out and tried to grab Shaun.

The man who had joined her assured Nate that it was almost over. "Everything's going to be fine." Lucy didn't believe him. Were where the other scientists? The doctors? Shouldn't they be checking to see how everyone was doing?

The other woman continued to try and take Shaun. Nate refused to give up their son. If they were really from Vault-Tec, wouldn't they let Nate hold onto their boy while they were checked out?

The man pulled up his gun and pointed it squarely at Nate. "Let the boy go." Why was this happening? Why would they want Shaun? A part of her almost wished Nate would just give him up. They could find Shaun later, together.

But Nate refused. "I'm not giving you Shaun!" he screamed. Lucy's own scream was frozen in her throat as the man shot Nate at nearly point-blank range, closing the door on the pod like some metal coffin.

Lucy slumped back in shock as the man approached her own pod, sneering as he peered inside. "At least we still have the backup." What did he mean? Why had he done this? Even when the bomb had fell, she still had Nate and Shaun. Now she had nothing.

As her world faded to black once more, she made sure to commit the man's face to memory. If she ever managed to get out, she was going to find him, even if it killed her.


	2. Break on Through

Lucy woke once more, rage filling her body and overcoming her disorientation. She tried to ignore the searing cold in her lungs and leaned forward as she coughed, pounding on the door in the desperate hope that either it would open or the glass panel would break. Would she be left down here to die slowly across from her husband? Panic replaced the rage and she screamed, pressing forward on the door with all the strength she could muster. Mercifully, the door opened and Lucy tumbled out onto the cold metal floor.

It was slick with condensation and through the sirens she could hear the faint noise of dripping water. She drew in deep, ragged breaths as she pulled herself up. Had anyone else made it out? None of the other pod doors around her were open, but perhaps there were others further into the vault?

She stumbled forward to Nate's pod. She closed her eyes and placed a hand on his pod. For a moment, she wished she had stayed frozen. Anything would have been better than waking up to this.

Lucy pushed the thought from her head. She couldn't think like that now. She had to find their son and the man who killed her husband. She opened her eyes and stepped back, wiping away tears she hadn't known were there with the back of her hand. She pulled the same lever the strange woman had opened the first time to take Shaun and stepped back further as Nate's pod opened with a hiss.

Fog rolled out as Nate's body was exposed to the warmer air of the vault. She placed a hand over her mouth, muffling her cry of despair at the sight of him. A gunshot wound was centered squarely on his forehead and the back of the vault was covered in gore. She raised a shaky hand to close his eyes. At least he didn't suffer...

"I'll find whoever did this. I promise," she told him as she slid the ring off his frozen hand and tucked it away into a pocket on her vault suit. She gave his cheek one last caress before closing the pod. She made a silent promise to herself to come back and give him a proper burial once she found Shaun, but until then she had to keep going.

She was almost grateful for the sirens as she walked. Without them, the vault would have been unbearably silent. "I can't be the only one left," she muttered to herself, hugging her arms close to her in an attempt to keep the chill at bay. "Hello! Anyone!?" she shouted as she made her way to another pod. Inside was Mrs. Able. Her eyes were half open and she wasn't moving. Lucy jumped back and continued down the line, checking each pod as she went. "They're all dead," she murmured as she made her way up the short set of stairs to the sliding door. Why would Vault-Tec do this? Had the other vaults been like this? Had anyone else survived?

She hugged herself even tighter, wondering what sort of dead world awaited her outside of the vault. She padded along quietly despite her previous shouting, a sense of dread rising in the pit of her stomach. She had no idea how much time had passed when she'd been frozen. Were those people descendants of the Vault-Tec employees? Question after question raced through her mind as she made her way to the door she had entered through.

She pressed the button to open the door but it refused to budge. Lucy nearly collapsed as her hopes of ever returning to the surface escaped her. Perhaps whoever had stolen her child had locked her in, dooming her to a slow death. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm herself. She had to find a way out, even if it meant crawling through maintenance tunnels.

With her resolve hardened, she decided to make her way deeper into the vault. She headed back to the intersection, taking just a moment to peek into the other room filled with pods. She shuddered and turned back, looking over her shoulder as she opened another sliding door. She halted at the end of the hall, frozen at the giant roach that was perched on the window to the next room. It was the size of a cat with antennae nearly as long as her arms. She'd hated roaches when they were small enough to be stomped on. They brought back unpleasant memories of a college boyfriend's filthy apartment and how she'd found several crawling across her one night she'd slept over. She shuddered once more as phantom legs skittered across her arms and legs and she prayed she wouldn't come across any without a thick pane of glass to separate them.

She skipped over the side-room containing nothing but a terminal and opened the next sliding door, releasing a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding when it opened to reveal an empty hallway. She glanced back and noticed a baton on a crate underneath the window. The thought of having to use it made her grimace but the thought of having to fight one of those roaches with her bare hands was even worse. She crouched and reached out to the baton, trying to keep as much distance between the giant roach and herself as possible. She nearly fell back as she scrambled away once the baton was in her grasp. She stepped back slowly and closed the door, her knuckles white with the tight grip on her new weapon.

Once the door had closed, she shut her eyes and drew in deep, shaky breaths. "Giant roaches... What the hell?" She'd often heard people joke that roaches were so persistent that they'd survive a nuclear blast, but she hadn't expected that to be true. And she certainly hadn't expected them to mutate in such a horrifying way. What else was out there, lurking above the vault? Was the world filled with nothing but monsters now?

Even if it was, she had to get her son back. He was the only thing that mattered. When she finally held him in her arms, she could try to adjust herself to their new life. But until then, she'd take on whatever hell this world threw at her.

Lucy opened her eyes and turned sharply on her heels. She paused at the end of the short hallway. It sounded like something was scuttling behind the door. She prayed it was another survivor as she pressed herself against the wall, doing her best to hide herself from view as she pressed the button to open the door.

Instead of another person, she was greeted with more of the giant roaches. She let out an involuntary noise of disgust and quickly clapped her hand over her mouth. It was too late, though. The roaches had seen her. They turned and Lucy took a step to the side, keeping her eyes on the over-sized bugs as she backed down the hallway. The foremost roach twitched its antennae for a moment as if considering her then lunged, jumping up nearly to her waist.

She screamed and dodged back, barely managing to stay upright. The roach jumped for her again and she brought the baton down on its back with a sickening crunch. The roach staggered and twitched on the metal floor, its innards oozing out slowly. Lucy brought the baton down with another scream, hitting it over and over and splattering gore across the floor and the legs of her vault suit.

The other roaches advanced, skittering toward her with furious clicks and hisses. Lucy kicked at one, knocking it across the hall, then swung down with the baton to hit another one across its head. It went still, though she had no time to celebrate her victory as the one she had kicked had regained its senses and was now flying at her along with two more. She held up her arms to protect her head, trying to step backwards. She stumbled once more and her balance gave out. She fell to the floor, landing hard on her right hip and elbow. She grunted and swung blindly with her left arm at the three roaches.

Hissing in pain, she dragged herself away as they nipped at her arms and legs. She turned toward them slightly and brought her left foot down on the smallest one, its exoskeleton only giving slight resistance as she crushed it. Bile rose in the back of her throat at the feeling of her foot going through it, though she managed to hold it back as she scrambled to her feet. She nearly fell once more, feet slippery with gore. The larger of the remaining two flew at her face while the other one scrambled around her feet. She managed to knock the big one away with her baton then brought her foot down on the one at her feet. It let out a shrill squeal as it squashed under her weight, legs twitching for just a moment before falling still.

Lucy turned her attention to the remaining roach. It was preparing to leap once more, but before it could do anything, she jumped toward it, bringing the baton down on it over and over until it was nothing more than a pile of broken shell and roach meat.

She pushed her glasses up with a shaky hand and tucked her hair back before pulling herself up to full height and walking into the room. With no warning, she heaved, stomach acid and bile burning the back of her throat as she dry-vomited onto the metal floors. She leaned over for a moment, pressing her hands into the tops of her thighs, and tried to collect herself. The roach bites stung and the viscera that coated her legs was seeping through the fabric of her vault suit, sticking uncomfortably to her skin. She shuddered and spat, ignoring the guilt from spitting indoors. It didn't seem like anyone had been around to clean in quite some time.

She let out a shaky breath, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then stood up. Across the room was an open door that led into what appeared to be a mess hall. She tiptoed forward, the absence of the sirens leaving dead quiet behind in its wake, and poked her head in to check around for more of the giant roaches. The coast was clear but she the dull pang of unease still lingered. She stepped as quietly as possible as she explored the room, only stepping into the dorm for a moment before heading to the sink. She turned on the faucet, relief washing through her when clean water spilled into the sink. She sat the baton next to the sink and washed her hands off before dipping her head down and taking a mouthful of water directly from the stream. She swished it around a moment and spat it out before dipping her head once more to take several long drinks. She considered washing up for a brief moment, or at the very least searching for some other clothes, but decided she'd wasted enough time. She could clean up later, but now she had to get out of the vault.

She grabbed the baton and headed back into the previous room, flinching at the crackling of electricity from the vault's generators. She hugged the side of the wall, tiptoeing around crates in an effort to stay as far away from the electrical arcs as possible. She faltered when she turned the corner of the walkway. A skeleton in a tattered vault suit was splayed in front of the door. How long had they been dead? How long had she been frozen for? It felt like it had been no more than a day, but the decay alone showed that it had at least been years. She bit back a cry and pushed the thought away. There was no point in dwelling on it.

She gave the skeleton as wide a berth as possible as she went through the door. Through the door was another hallway with a short set of stairs. Lucy froze as she heard the same skittering as before. She edged forward quietly, noticing just the two of them. With a grunt she dashed up the stairs, killing the closest one in one swift hit with her baton before it even noticed her. She used her momentum to propel her forward as the other turned, antennae writhing in the air as it prepared to attack. Just as it launched itself at her, she brought her baton down and swung at it. For a brief moment she was reminded of childhood summers spent playing softball, but the fond recollection was cut short as roach blood swung off of the baton and onto her face as she swung the baton up. She fought back the urge to retch once more and wiped the blood off with her left sleeve. She attempted to wipe the blood of the lenses onto her other sleeve but only succeeded in smearing it slightly. She made a small noise of disgust as she placed them back on her face and opened the next door, crouching down and preparing for another attack.

She let out a sigh of relief when nothing charged at her. Inside was a large, curved desk surrounded by boxes of files. Lying behind the desk was another skeleton. This one was wearing a lab coat and slacks. Was this one of the scientists or doctors who had greeted her when she first arrived? Or perhaps it was the overseer Lucy had never got to meet. She supposed it didn't matter now.

A mixture of guilt at being the only survivor and anger at Vault-Tec for not telling them that the pods would freeze them welled up inside her as she eyed the skeleton. As she collected the stimpaks on the desk, she contemplated giving the skeleton a kick for those who hadn't survived. Ultimately she decided it would be wasted energy. It seemed that they had gotten what they deserved. She hoped it had been a drawn-out death.

She picked up the gun on the desk, the weight of it uncomfortable in her hands. She'd never liked guns much, which was why Nate had kept his locked away in their safe. But now... She didn't know what existed beyond the vault. She doubted the giant cockroaches were the worst things the world held for her. Even if she couldn't shoot for shit, a gun had to be better than a plastic security baton. Still, a baton couldn't run out of ammo or jam or misfire. She collapsed it and tucked it into a pocket before picking up the extra box of rounds and tucking them away as well. She then moved across the room to the weapons closet, eyeing the frosted glass case for a moment before picking up more rounds for the pistol. She wanted nothing to do with Vault-Tec technology, especially if it was the same technology that had frozen her and her family.

Satisfied with her finds, Lucy made her way to the door, gun gripped tightly in her right hand. She pressed the button to open it only to find that it, like the first door she had came across, was locked. "Shit," she hissed, looking around the room for another way out. She frowned and headed toward the terminal. Perhaps there would be a note or a way to unlock it from there...

She placed the gun on the desk and bent over, logging into the terminal. A list of options came up, including instructions for the overseer, the overseer's log, and an option to open the evacuation tunnel. She scrolled down to the option to open the tunnel then paused before selecting it. She had to know what the overseer had been instructed to do. Perhaps there would be a clue to who took Shaun.

She scrolled back up and selected the overseer's instructions. A chill shot through her as she read. She, along with everyone else, had been nothing but an experiment and the staff members were "expendable". She let out a muffled gasp with the realization that her vault had just been one vault among hundreds, no doubt with each one being some sort of experiment. Disgust and horror filled her as she backed out quickly and selected the option to unlock the door. She should have slammed her door in the representative's face. Dying a quick death with her loved ones seemed like the preferable option compared to what she had faced.

A twinge of guilt gnawed at her as she thought of the other people who had lost their lives. Men, women, and children now dead and gone while she had survived by sheer luck. She wished it hadn't been her, though. It should have been Nate. He was the one with combat experience. He could more easily brave whatever threats lurked above ground. She should have been the one holding their son as they were frozen. So much for the maternal affection Codsworth had praised her for.

She pushed the guilt down as she left the overseer's office and entered the maintenance tunnels. She didn't have time to think on that. If she thought about all the what-ifs and regrets she had now, she'd be stuck in the vault with her grief and guilt while Shaun was left to whatever fate that man had thrust upon him.

Through the door were more of the giant roaches. She pulled out the baton and dispatched of them quickly, saving her bullets in case something worse found her. She continued down the hall and into the next room, taking a brief moment to collect herself before opening the last door. When she saw the vault opening she let out a cry of relief, attracting the attention of more roaches. She kicked one across the room and it crashed into the railings and fell still. The second she smashed with the baton, wiping her weapon on the soiled legs of her vault suit before collapsing it and putting it away.

More skeletons littered the room, some in lab coats and others in vault suits. She examined one to the left of the room as she picked up another box of ammo. "Is anyone alive? Did anyone get out?" she asked to the empty room, eyeing the contracted walkway that led to the vault entrance. She thought about attempting to jump the gap, or perhaps stacking the metal crates on top of one another so she could climb up. That still left the elevator, though. She doubted there was an emergency stairwell to the surface. There had to be some sort of key...

She stepped closer to the walkway, making note of the panel with a bright red button. She attempted to pull the glass up but it stayed shut, no doubt locked by some means. She turned and caught sight of a Pip-Boy still on the arm of a skeleton. She crouched down and slid it off, detaching the arm from the rest of the body. "Sorry about that," she apologized, wondering if ghosts lingered the halls of the vault and watched her in silent judgment as she defiled their bodies. She shivered and stepped away from the body, latching the Pip-Boy around her left arm. The weight of it was uncomfortable and she wondered how any scientist could get used to it.

She dusted off the screen and examined it, noting a plug on the underside in the same shape as the outlet next to the button. She gave it an experimental tug and it pulled out. She sent up a quick prayer to whatever gods were left that this would work and put the plug into the outlet. The glass case sprung open immediately, exposing the button. She sent up a silent thank you, hoping that her luck could continue, and put the plug back into the Pip-Boy before pressing the button. She jumped, startled from the sirens that started blaring. She felt exposed, like a criminal escaping jail, warning sirens blaring that she was on the loose. She crouched down by the gate, sprinting across it the moment the vault door opened and the walkway connected. She turned and faced the inside of the vault once she was in the elevator, holding the gun up and at the ready should anything else come for her.

With a shudder and a heave, the elevator began to rise. Lucy lowered the gun and clicked on the safety, leaning against the wall once the elevator rose past the door. She shut her eyes and leaned her head back. Exhaustion filled her to her core. It seemed like just that morning she had been laying in bed with her husband. How much time had passed since then? How many years had gone by in the span of what felt like hours? Now here she was, Nate dead and their son taken, and she was rising toward an unknown world. Regardless of whatever lay beyond the door above, she couldn't give up hope that she'd find her son.

The doors above her parted with the loud groan of rusted metal. She looked up, squinting as sunlight filtered in. The sky above was the same shade of blue it had been the day she'd gone down. She closed her eyes once more, feeling the sunshine on her face. For just a moment, she could pretend that nothing had happened. She only opened her eyes when the elevator shuddered to a stop.

She drew in a sharp breath and fell to her knees, a weak cry escaping her. Everything was dead.

Notes: I've updated the first chapter a little, expounding a little more on Lucy and her love of music. 2 TB is a lot of music, but I figure someone with a love of music might download just about any song they came across and liked. Some of the songs might seem like they aren't lore friendly, but I know in Fallout 2 there was a reference to the band Tool. Also, I won't be sticking 100% to the lore anyway. Radiation will act a little bit more like it does in real life (in that there's no nuclear summer and there will be seasons, for the most part), pop culture references might be made here and there by Lucy, and the ending will have a tone of hope and renewal to it that the canon Wasteland doesn't seem to have. Besides, when has Bethesda kept their lore straight anyway? Anyway, thanks for reading! (I'm still looking for a beta, by the way! So a shout out to my husband who's been gracious enough to read over it for any glaring mistakes.)


	3. It's All Over But the Crying

If her first steps back into the world were like entering a bad dream, her first steps across the bridge were like entering into a night terror. A dead man and a horribly disfigured dog lay next to each other in dried pools of blood, a bloodied and rusted tire iron between them. Lucy felt bile rise in the back of her throat and she clasped a hand over her mouth as she side-stepped around them. Codsworth had said there were people living in Concord, but all she'd seen since she escaped her pod had been death and destruction. She wanted to believe that she'd know if Shaun was dead, that some sort of maternal instinct would have told her that he hadn't made it, but the bigger part of her felt that there was no way of knowing whether he was alive or not. She just hoped that the man who had taken him had been strong enough to survive and ensure her son's safety.

Once she made it past the dead pair, she broke into a slight jog until she reached the Red Rocket station. A scuffling noise put her on edge and she crouched down behind a dead shrub. She held her breath and peeked around the shrub, holding her gun up and at the ready. A dog was standing near the building, pawing through some accumulated trash. It looked to be a regular dog, almost like a pure-bred German Shepherd, but Lucy couldn't let her guard down. As far as she could tell, everything she'd encountered except Codsworth had wanted to kill her.

She shuffled forward slightly, trying to get a better look at him. A branch snapped under her foot as she stepped forward and she let out her breath, head jerking upward to see what the dog would do. It turned toward her, head cocking to the side. After a moment it caught sight of her and let out a bark. Lucy fell back, gun flying out of her hand as she scrambled backwards on her hands and feet. The dog bounded toward her and Lucy closed her eyes, preparing herself for the inevitable. She wondered if Codsworth would come looking for her when she didn't return.

Instead of the snap of jaws around her leg, though, she felt hot breath on her face. She opened one eye to see the dog standing next to her, panting slightly and tail wagging wildly. "Uhh... Good boy?" He let out quiet bark before covering her face in licks. Lucy felt the energy rush out of her and she laid back, resting her hand on the dog's side.

Once she recuperated from what she thought was certain death, she sat back up and collected her gun. The dog was sitting patiently nearby, panting slightly with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. "You're the second best thing I've seen all day, boy," Lucy told him, giving him a few scratches on his chest before standing up. "What are you doing out here all alone?"

He stood up, gave a short bark, and started wagging his tail. "Wanna come with me, boy?" she asked, bending down slightly to extend a hand. He came to her and pressed the side of his head into it. She grinned and scratched his cheek for a moment before standing up straight once more. "I'll take that as a yes." She just hoped he could fend for himself if they got into any trouble. The giant bugs had been bad enough. She wasn't sure how well she could hold against anything tougher.

After foraging around the fueling station and coming up with a few stimpaks thanks to the dog, Lucy continued on her way into Concord. She went at a slow pace as she rounded the corner, standing still for a moment as she noticed a large mass at the fork in the road. The dog barked twice then bounded forward, leaving her behind to try and figure out exactly what was lying in the road. As the dog approached the mass, part of it started to move. She drew closer and realized in horror exactly what the mass was. Two giant mosquitoes, both as tall as she was, were feasting on the corpse of a two-headed, mutilated cow. It reminded her of the dog she had encountered earlier with the strange lumpy, red skin and patches of fur. The mosquitoes, no doubt attracted by fresh blood, abandoned the corpse. One went for the dog while the other set its eyes on her.

Lucy froze and took a few steps back, eyes darting between the dog and the mosquito that was heading her way. She tried to level her gun at it but her hand was shaking too much and its body was too slender, so her bullets went wide. She grunted in frustration as it drew closer and holstered the pistol, pulling out the baton she'd taken from the vault. She wished for a moment that she'd grabbed the tire iron, but there was no way she was running back to get it. She crouched down slightly and prepared for an attack. Once the mosquito was within range, she lunged forward, swinging the baton up with all her force onto the mosquito's proboscis. It buzzed in pain and fell back slightly before charging again. This time she brought the baton down upon its wings. They gave way under the hard plastic and it fell to the ground. Before it could stand, Lucy brought the baton down repeatedly on its head. Mosquito gore joined the dried roach blood upon her sleeve and she grimaced.

The dog's barks caught her attention before she could reminisce about showers and her head darted up just as he dealt the killing bite to the other mosquito. She collapsed the baton and put it away as she walked toward the dog who bounded toward her. He was covered in blood, though Lucy wasn't sure if it was his or the mosquito's. "Hey boy, good job!" she told him, kneeling down to inspect him for injuries. He let out a curious sounding groan as she rubbed her hands along him but held still. She was no vet, but from what she could tell he was no worse for the wear. "Glad you're okay, buddy. Wish I had some treats to give you..." she told him as she scratched under his chin. He gave a soft bark then stood up, bounding off ahead of her once more.

The rest of their walk into Concord was relatively uneventful. Occasionally the dog bounded into a house and barked incessantly until Lucy came to investigate, finding him pointing at a box with his nose, body and tail stiff. She felt guilty as she looted the goods, grabbing a worn mailman's satchel out of a drawer to hold her new finds in. Surely there had to have been someone who stashed them there? She tried to quiet the guilt, telling herself that maybe they'd been missed by other looters and that if someone had hidden them the person would be around to guard them. She only wished she had some money to leave behind in place of the goods she took, though she doubted American currency was even used anymore. Perhaps they went back to metal coins? No doubt gold and silver would be more valuable than paper.

She even tried her hand with picking a few locks with some bobby pins and a screwdriver she found. She was successful only once and took the broken bobby pins as a sign that she should stay out of the safes she'd tried breaking into. She only took what she deemed necessary – a box of ammo and a stimpak – leaving behind a silver locket and a gun that look like it'd been made at someone's tool bench along with the ammo for it.

As she drew closer to Concord's central street, the sound of gunfire put her on edge. She hugged the side of a building and inched closer to the sound. There were people in the street, all dressed in strange, tattered clothing, shooting at something further down the road she couldn't see. She wondered if she should call out to them. Were these the people Codsworth had mentioned? Perhaps they would react better to her than to a robot.

Just as she was about to step from the shadows and call to them, the dog ran forward to the closest person. She held back, waiting to see what their reaction would be. Friendly people wouldn't attack a dog, right?

The person, a shirtless man wearing some sort of leather chest-piece, whirled around and shouted. The dog barked once more and the man raised his gun and fired at him. Luckily the dog managed to bound out of the way just in time. He let out an angry bark and bared his teeth. Lucy's eyebrows drew together and she stepped out of the shadows. "Hey, leave him alone!" she shouted, thinking perhaps the guy would back off if he knew the dog was with her. Instead, the man rounded on her and pointed the gun at her. She stepped to the side and a bullet whistled past her. "Shit, shit, shit," she hissed, drawing out her own gun. She dove behind some sandbags, keeping her head down as the man continued firing shots at her. "I just want to talk!" she shouted above the noise.

"This ain't personal! It's how you survive in the Commonwealth," he shouted back.

She winced as a bullet hit the top of a sandbag, sending sand flying across her. Was everyone going to be like this? She didn't want to kill anyone. She'd seen what war had done to Nate, and she wanted no part of it. She just wanted to find her son.

She heard the dog bark again and the man scream "Get off me!" She peeked over the sandbags and saw that the dog had a hold of the man's arm that was holding the gun. Lucy raised her weapon and shot at him, aiming for his leg. She barely grazed him and he looked up at her as he finally shook off the dog. He then looked back down at the dog and shot him in the shoulder before he turned to her and fired once more.

She dodged to the right but she wasn't quick enough. The bullet grazed her left arm, leaving a searing pain coursing through her bicep. She hissed and raised her weapon as the man reloaded, kneeling to steady herself. She fired once and the bullet hit him where his shoulder met his chest. "You bitch!" he yelled at her, aiming his gun. Lucy screamed and set off three more bullets. The first hit his chest again and the second went wild. The third clipped his throat and he went down, holding his neck with both hands.

Lucy ran over and pulled out a stimpak, falling on her knees next to the dog. The bullet had left a deep graze across the top of his shoulder and he was bleeding badly. "Hold on, boy," she said, injecting the stimpak next to the wound. She pulled out another and scrambled on her hands and knees to the man she had shot.

He looked up at her with nothing but anger and hate in his bloodshot eyes. "End me! Do it!" he yelled at her, blood bubbling out of his mouth and spraying at her.

She wanted to vomit, but she knew with the injury he was too far gone. She put away the stimpak and brought her gun up with a shaky hand. "End it, you fucking coward!" he yelled at her. She aimed and fired, putting a bullet in his head like the man from the vault had done to Nate. She let out a cry and fell back. She was a murderer.

A feminine scream drew her attention further down the road. A woman with a sack over her head had turned to face them, leaving the rest of the fight to focus her attention on Lucy. "You fucking killed him!" she screeched as she ran toward Lucy with a knife drawn.

Lucy turned over onto her knees and tried to scramble to her feet. Thanks to the stimpak, the dog was up on his feet once more. He lunged past her and knocked the woman down, sending the knife scattering.

Lucy turned and aimed her gun at the woman. "I just wanted to talk!" she insisted. Through the eye holes in the sack, the woman's eyes were staring her down, full of malice and acid. If looks could kill, Lucy would have been torn into a thousand pieces.

"Fuck you, you little bitch!" the woman screamed at her from the ground.

"Dog!" Lucy shouted, signaling for the dog to come to her. Her hands were still shaking and she didn't want to hurt him by accident. She fired three times, hitting the woman in the head twice and once in the chest.

A loud _thwang_ resounded through the air and the last of the group fell to the ground. She looked down the street and up to the balcony of the Museum of Freedom. She approached the museum carefully, gun raised in case this man should start shooting at her. Instead, he shouted to her.

"I've got a group of settlers inside! The raiders are almost through the door! Grab that laser musket and help us! _Please!_ "

They needed _her_ help? She would have laughed at the incredulousness of it if the situation weren't so dire. She looked down at the weapon he spoke of. She'd seen laser weapons before but nothing like this. She holstered the pistol and picked it up along with the scattered fusion cells. Nate had shown her a laser pistol before and told her that others in his battalion had used laser rifles along with standard ballistic guns, but she'd only listened half-heartedly as he explained the different weapons and their pros and cons. Even if she'd married a soldier, she still hadn't approved of the violence.

Yet here she was, killing people who wanted to kill her, no doubt over resources. Not only was she a killer, but she was a hypocrite. What would her husband have thought of her now that she had blood on her hands?

She pushed the thought aside and examined the laser musket, giving the handle on the back of it an experimental crank. The laser powered up, ready to be fired. She cranked once more and the laser burned brighter. She prayed she knew what she was doing, lest the lives of the settlers who lived inside end up on her hands as well, and entered the Museum of Freedom.

With the help of the dog, she managed to make it to the top floor of the museum with minimal injuries. She grit her teeth in pain as she pulled aside a torn section her vault suit on her midriff. A raider had managed to slice across her abs with a combat knife, leaving a deep gash. She injected a stimpak next to it, watching in amazement at how quickly the wound stitched itself together, leaving a nasty scar roughly three inches long above her navel.

She picked up her weapon and continued down the balcony, keeping it at her side but with the safety off in case this had all been a ploy and the man who had begged for help turned on her.

The dog didn't seem to share her restrictions and he ran forward and straight into the room. She didn't hear shots fired, but she still didn't lower her guard. As she stepped into the room, the man who had asked for her help approached her, his own laser musket in hand.

He was dressed oddly, like he'd stolen the clothes off a mannequin in the Museum of Freedom. To his right, tapping away on a terminal, was a man wearing overalls and a t-shirt. To his left, an old woman in slippers sat with the dog at her feet. Pacing the room was a younger woman while a man sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, muttering to himself and rocking back and forth in front of a desk. Lucy turned her eyes back toward the man as he spoke.

"Man, I don't know who you are, but your timing's impeccable. Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen."

 _Minutemen? So now I'm traveling_ back _in time?_ She kept her thoughts to herself and instead offered a tight-lipped smile. "Glad to help." Or at least, she would have been if helping hadn't involved killing people. Still, she supposed it was going to be the raiders or her and this ragtag group, and she wasn't about to let anything get in her way of saving her child.

Preston seemed a bit taken aback by her answer. "Well if that's true, we could use some more good will. As you can see, we're in a bit of a mess here." Lucy heard the younger woman scoff at Preston's understatement, though she said nothing more.

She lowered her weapon, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "The world's changed so much. None of this makes sense..." she muttered, mostly to herself. Raiders, mutated creatures, and people dressing up like they were going to a historical reenactment weren't exactly what she had been expecting when she was released from her cryopod. Then again, she supposed she wasn't really sure what she _had_ been expecting. She wished she could take a break and try to figure out this new world, but she knew she didn't have the time.

"You all right?" Preston asked, looking just as confused as she was. Before she could answer, he continued. "Listen, we need your help. And then maybe we can help you, huh? What brought you out here?"

She evaded his question slightly, not wanting to give up all her information right away. "Who's around that can find a missing person?"

"Used to have a few good trackers in this group. Not many now," he told her, face falling as he looked around at his small group. "A month ago, there were twenty of us. Yesterday there were eight. Now, we're five. First it was the ghouls in Lexington and now this mess," he explained, voice full of anger.

"Ghouls? What are ghouls?" Just how many horrors had been created since the bomb fell?

The anger rushed out of Preston, replaced with surprise at her question. "Wow, you really aren't from around here, are you?" He paused, drawing in a deep breath. "Ghouls are... irradiated people. Most are just like you and me. They look pretty messed up and live for a long time, but they're still just people."

Lucy covered her mouth, holding back a cry at his explanation. That had to be torture.

"The ones I'm talking about are different," he continued. "The radiation's rotted their brains. Made them feral. They'll rip you apart, just as soon as look at you. Anyway, we figured Concord would be a safe place to settle. Those raiders proved us wrong. But... well, we do have one idea."

"Will it be enough? To stop those maniacs?" she asked, wishing that the raiders would just leave them be. Surely they could loot whatever they wanted elsewhere.

Preston turned his head to the man at the terminal. "Sturges? Tell her."

The man, Sturges, abandoned the terminal and turned around, leaning against the desk and crossing his muscular arms. "There's a crashed vertibird up on the roof. Old school. Pre-war. You might've seen it."

Lucy shook her head, thought it did explain the giant chunk of collapsed roof she'd noticed from the ground.

"Well, looks like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody. We're talking a full suit of cherry T-45 power armor. Military issue."

Nate had worn power armor, and so had the soldiers who'd patrolled Boston before the bombs fell. He'd told her just how instrumental it was to turning the tide against the Chinese, how he'd seen his fellow men and women in battle take grenade blasts and missiles full-on and come out swinging. "That's some serious protection," she replied, wondering why they hadn't obtained it yet.

"Oh, it gets better," Sturges told her, a grin forming. "Get the suit, you can rip the minigun right off the vertibird. Do that, and those raiders get an express ticket to Hell. You dig?"

She assumed he was using the general "you". They couldn't expect her to get into that suit of power armor, right? Surely Preston or Sturges would be much better suited for it? "Huh. Could work," she replied. She hoped it would. It would be easier for her to find Shaun if she didn't have to worry about shooting her way out with a small pistol and the laser musket.

"It'll work," Sturges assured her. "Provided we can reactivate the suit. It's totally out of juice. Probably has been for a hundred years. It can be powered up again, but we're a bit stuck..."

So _that's_ why they hadn't utilized it yet. "I'll help if I can," she said with slight hesitation. She knew the earlier models ran on energy cells, with the later models being switched to microfusion cores. But she didn't have a clue as to where to find one.

Preston chimed in. "What you'll need is an old pre-war F.C., a standardized fusion core. Your high-grade, long-term nuclear batter." Lucy gave a small nod, though didn't interrupt to tell him she knew. "Used by the military and some companies, way back when. And we know right where to find one."

Sturges picked up where Preston left off. "But we can't get to the damn thing. It's down the basement, locked behind a security gate. Look, I fix stuff. I tinker. Bypassing security ain't exactly my forte. You could give it a shot," he told her, looking pointedly at her.

"I don't know. We'll see..." She'd hacked a few terminals in her time, mostly when she'd got locked out of her own. It wasn't particularly a hard thing to do, especially when they told you how close you were to guessing the password. Still, she didn't know what kind of encryption the terminal to access the door would have, and if she guessed it incorrectly too many times she'd be locked out.

"Well, it's not a no..." Preston said with a disappointed sigh. "Look, if you can get to the fusion core, jack it into the power armor and grab the minigun then those raiders will know they picked the wrong fight. And once they're dealt with, maybe we can see about helping you out."

"I'll... give it a shot," Lucy told him. It was the only shot she had about getting some information about the wasteland that was once Massachusetts.

"Good luck," Preston told her before turning back to Sturges.

* * *

The terminal had been surprisingly easy to hack into. She would have thought that the museum officials would have tried harder to keep people away from the source of the museum's power, but she supposed security risks were the last of their worries due to the budget cuts they'd gone through in the last few years they operated.

Fusion core in hand, she returned to Preston's group. "Here you are. One fusion cell, ready to go." She held it out to Preston, expecting him to take it and plug it into the power armor.

"We were hoping that you'd be the one to get in the suit. I never really liked power armor and Sturges was going to stay inside and help defend from up here," he told her.

Her brow furrowed and she took a step back. "Me? I've never operated power armor before." The mere suggestion of her, a lawyer, getting into a suit of power armor was almost laughable.

"It'll take some getting used to, but honestly, you look like you could use it the most. Judging from that vault suit and the tears in it, you don't seem to have a lot of combat experience. Even if it's tough to maneuver, it'll protect you from the bullets."

She frowned, though she couldn't fault his logic. She also couldn't help but be grateful that he seemed to be looking out for her. "I guess I don't have much of a choice then. I'll see what I can do."

Preston nodded and gestured to a door across the room. "That's all we can ask. The door to the roof is that way."

As she headed toward the door, the old woman on the couch caught her attention and waved her over. "Dogmeat sure did find us some help," the woman told her, scratching the dog behind his ears. "Just look at ya'."

The dog's name was Dogmeat? Lucy wrinkled her nose slightly at just how crude it was. If he'd been her dog, she would've gone with something like Rex or Scout. "So he's your dog?" she asked, wondering if this was why he'd been so tame.

"Oh he ain't my dog. No sir. Dogmeat, he's what you'd call his own man." Dogmeat let out a quiet whine and then yawned, laying his head down on his paws."You can't own a free spirit like that. But he chooses his friends and sticks with 'em. He'll stay by you now. I saw it."

Lucy raised an eyebrow slightly, wondering just what she meant. "You 'saw it'?"

"It's the chems, kid. They give old Mama Murphy the "Sight." Been that way for as long as I can remember."

She almost snorted at Mama Murphy's explanation. This old woman thought drugs enabled her to see the future? Instead of scoffing outright, though, Lucy humored her. "What's the Sight?"

"I can see a bit of what was, and what will be. And even what is, right now." It took even more effort for Lucy not to laugh, but she didn't want to be rude. Her maternal grandparents had tried to drill respect for her elders into her from a young age, and just because they were long gone now didn't mean her manners were. "And right now I can see there's something coming. Drawn by the noise, and the chaos," Mama Murphy continued, voice serious and tinged with fear. And it... is... angry."

Despite the fact that Lucy considered all of what Mama Murphy was saying to be hogwash, she couldn't help but find her curiosity piqued. "What is it, Mama Murphy? What's coming?"

"I'm... I'm sorry, kid," the old woman said with a sigh, leaning back on the couch. "I Just don't know. The sight ain't always clear. But believe me when I tell you it ain't a raider." A chill crawled up Lucy's spine and she rolled her shoulders in an attempt to shake it off. "Ah, but I'm tired, now," Mama Murphy continued, folding her hands in her lap. "And if I ain't mistaken, you've got a job to do."

"Right..." Lucy frowned and turned toward the door, glancing back once more at Mama Murphy before she left the room, the old woman's alarming portent clinging to the back of her mind as she stepped out onto the roof.


	4. People Are Strange

If her first steps back into the world were like entering a bad dream, her first steps across the bridge were like entering into a night terror. A dead man and a horribly disfigured dog lay next to each other in dried pools of blood, a bloodied and rusted tire iron between them. Lucy felt bile rise in the back of her throat and she clasped a hand over her mouth as she side-stepped around them. Codsworth had said there were people living in Concord, but all she'd seen since she escaped her pod had been death and destruction. She wanted to believe that she'd know if Shaun was dead, that some sort of maternal instinct would have told her that he hadn't made it, but the bigger part of her felt that there was no way of knowing whether he was alive or not. She just hoped that the man who had taken him had been strong enough to survive and ensure her son's safety.

Once she made it past the dead pair, she broke into a slight jog until she reached the Red Rocket station. A scuffling noise put her on edge and she crouched down behind a dead shrub. She held her breath and peeked around the shrub, holding her gun up and at the ready. A dog was standing near the building, pawing through some accumulated trash. It looked to be a regular dog, almost like a pure-bred German Shepherd, but Lucy couldn't let her guard down. As far as she could tell, everything she'd encountered except Codsworth had wanted to kill her.

She shuffled forward slightly, trying to get a better look at him. A branch snapped under her foot as she stepped forward and she let out her breath, head jerking upward to see what the dog would do. It turned toward her, head cocking to the side. After a moment it caught sight of her and let out a bark. Lucy fell back, gun flying out of her hand as she scrambled backwards on her hands and feet. The dog bounded toward her and Lucy closed her eyes, preparing herself for the inevitable. She wondered if Codsworth would come looking for her when she didn't return.

Instead of the snap of jaws around her leg, though, she felt hot breath on her face. She opened one eye to see the dog standing next to her, panting slightly and tail wagging wildly. "Uhh... Good boy?" He let out quiet bark before covering her face in licks. Lucy felt the energy rush out of her and she laid back, resting her hand on the dog's side.

Once she recuperated from what she thought was certain death, she sat back up and collected her gun. The dog was sitting patiently nearby, panting slightly with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. "You're the second best thing I've seen all day, boy," Lucy told him, giving him a few scratches on his chest before standing up. "What are you doing out here all alone?"

He stood up, gave a short bark, and started wagging his tail. "Wanna come with me, boy?" she asked, bending down slightly to extend a hand. He came to her and pressed the side of his head into it. She grinned and scratched his cheek for a moment before standing up straight once more. "I'll take that as a yes." She just hoped he could fend for himself if they got into any trouble. The giant bugs had been bad enough. She wasn't sure how well she could hold against anything tougher.

After foraging around the fueling station and coming up with a few stimpaks thanks to the dog, Lucy continued on her way into Concord. She went at a slow pace as she rounded the corner, standing still for a moment as she noticed a large mass at the fork in the road. The dog barked twice then bounded forward, leaving her behind to try and figure out exactly what was lying in the road. As the dog approached the mass, part of it started to move. She drew closer and realized in horror exactly what the mass was. Two giant mosquitoes, both as tall as she was, were feasting on the corpse of a two-headed, mutilated cow. It reminded her of the dog she had encountered earlier with the strange lumpy, red skin and patches of fur. The mosquitoes, no doubt attracted by fresh blood, abandoned the corpse. One went for the dog while the other set its eyes on her.

Lucy froze and took a few steps back, eyes darting between the dog and the mosquito that was heading her way. She tried to level her gun at it but her hand was shaking too much and its body was too slender, so her bullets went wide. She grunted in frustration as it drew closer and holstered the pistol, pulling out the baton she'd taken from the vault. She wished for a moment that she'd grabbed the tire iron, but there was no way she was running back to get it. She crouched down slightly and prepared for an attack. Once the mosquito was within range, she lunged forward, swinging the baton up with all her force onto the mosquito's proboscis. It buzzed in pain and fell back slightly before charging again. This time she brought the baton down upon its wings. They gave way under the hard plastic and it fell to the ground. Before it could stand, Lucy brought the baton down repeatedly on its head. Mosquito gore joined the dried roach blood upon her sleeve and she grimaced.

The dog's barks caught her attention before she could reminisce about showers and her head darted up just as he dealt the killing bite to the other mosquito. She collapsed the baton and put it away as she walked toward the dog who bounded toward her. He was covered in blood, though Lucy wasn't sure if it was his or the mosquito's. "Hey boy, good job!" she told him, kneeling down to inspect him for injuries. He let out a curious sounding groan as she rubbed her hands along him but held still. She was no vet, but from what she could tell he was no worse for the wear. "Glad you're okay, buddy. Wish I had some treats to give you..." she told him as she scratched under his chin. He gave a soft bark then stood up, bounding off ahead of her once more.

The rest of their walk into Concord was relatively uneventful. Occasionally the dog bounded into a house and barked incessantly until Lucy came to investigate, finding him pointing at a box with his nose, body and tail stiff. She felt guilty as she looted the goods, grabbing a worn mailman's satchel out of a drawer to hold her new finds in. Surely there had to have been someone who stashed them there? She tried to quiet the guilt, telling herself that maybe they'd been missed by other looters and that if someone had hidden them the person would be around to guard them. She only wished she had some money to leave behind in place of the goods she took, though she doubted American currency was even used anymore. Perhaps they went back to metal coins? No doubt gold and silver would be more valuable than paper.

She even tried her hand with picking a few locks with some bobby pins and a screwdriver she found. She was successful only once and took the broken bobby pins as a sign that she should stay out of the safes she'd tried breaking into. She only took what she deemed necessary – a box of ammo and a stimpak – leaving behind a silver locket and a gun that look like it'd been made at someone's tool bench along with the ammo for it.

As she drew closer to Concord's central street, the sound of gunfire put her on edge. She hugged the side of a building and inched closer to the sound. There were people in the street, all dressed in strange, tattered clothing, shooting at something further down the road she couldn't see. She wondered if she should call out to them. Were these the people Codsworth had mentioned? Perhaps they would react better to her than to a robot.

Just as she was about to step from the shadows and call to them, the dog ran forward to the closest person. She held back, waiting to see what their reaction would be. Friendly people wouldn't attack a dog, right?

The person, a shirtless man wearing some sort of leather chest-piece, whirled around and shouted. The dog barked once more and the man raised his gun and fired at him. Luckily the dog managed to bound out of the way just in time. He let out an angry bark and bared his teeth. Lucy's eyebrows drew together and she stepped out of the shadows. "Hey, leave him alone!" she shouted, thinking perhaps the guy would back off if he knew the dog was with her. Instead, the man rounded on her and pointed the gun at her. She stepped to the side and a bullet whistled past her. "Shit, shit, shit," she hissed, drawing out her own gun. She dove behind some sandbags, keeping her head down as the man continued firing shots at her. "I just want to talk!" she shouted above the noise.

"This ain't personal! It's how you survive in the Commonwealth," he shouted back.

She winced as a bullet hit the top of a sandbag, sending sand flying across her. Was everyone going to be like this? She didn't want to kill anyone. She'd seen what war had done to Nate, and she wanted no part of it. She just wanted to find her son.

She heard the dog bark again and the man scream "Get off me!" She peeked over the sandbags and saw that the dog had a hold of the man's arm that was holding the gun. Lucy raised her weapon and shot at him, aiming for his leg. She barely grazed him and he looked up at her as he finally shook off the dog. He then looked back down at the dog and shot him in the shoulder before he turned to her and fired once more.

She dodged to the right but she wasn't quick enough. The bullet grazed her left arm, leaving a searing pain coursing through her bicep. She hissed and raised her weapon as the man reloaded, kneeling to steady herself. She fired once and the bullet hit him where his shoulder met his chest. "You bitch!" he yelled at her, aiming his gun. Lucy screamed and set off three more bullets. The first hit his chest again and the second went wild. The third clipped his throat and he went down, holding his neck with both hands.

Lucy ran over and pulled out a stimpak, falling on her knees next to the dog. The bullet had left a deep graze across the top of his shoulder and he was bleeding badly. "Hold on, boy," she said, injecting the stimpak next to the wound. She pulled out another and scrambled on her hands and knees to the man she had shot.

He looked up at her with nothing but anger and hate in his bloodshot eyes. "End me! Do it!" he yelled at her, blood bubbling out of his mouth and spraying at her.

She wanted to vomit, but she knew with the injury he was too far gone. She put away the stimpak and brought her gun up with a shaky hand. "End it, you fucking coward!" he yelled at her. She aimed and fired, putting a bullet in his head like the man from the vault had done to Nate. She let out a cry and fell back. She was a murderer.

A feminine scream drew her attention further down the road. A woman with a sack over her head had turned to face them, leaving the rest of the fight to focus her attention on Lucy. "You fucking killed him!" she screeched as she ran toward Lucy with a knife drawn.

Lucy turned over onto her knees and tried to scramble to her feet. Thanks to the stimpak, the dog was up on his feet once more. He lunged past her and knocked the woman down, sending the knife scattering.

Lucy turned and aimed her gun at the woman. "I just wanted to talk!" she insisted. Through the eye holes in the sack, the woman's eyes were staring her down, full of malice and acid. If looks could kill, Lucy would have been torn into a thousand pieces.

"Fuck you, you little bitch!" the woman screamed at her from the ground.

"Dog!" Lucy shouted, signaling for the dog to come to her. Her hands were still shaking and she didn't want to hurt him by accident. She fired three times, hitting the woman in the head twice and once in the chest.

A loud _thwang_ resounded through the air and the last of the group fell to the ground. She looked down the street and up to the balcony of the Museum of Freedom. She approached the museum carefully, gun raised in case this man should start shooting at her. Instead, he shouted to her.

"I've got a group of settlers inside! The raiders are almost through the door! Grab that laser musket and help us! _Please!_ "

They needed _her_ help? She would have laughed at the incredulousness of it if the situation weren't so dire. She looked down at the weapon he spoke of. She'd seen laser weapons before but nothing like this. She holstered the pistol and picked it up along with the scattered fusion cells. Nate had shown her a laser pistol before and told her that others in his battalion had used laser rifles along with standard ballistic guns, but she'd only listened half-heartedly as he explained the different weapons and their pros and cons. Even if she'd married a soldier, she still hadn't approved of the violence.

Yet here she was, killing people who wanted to kill her, no doubt over resources. Not only was she a killer, but she was a hypocrite. What would her husband have thought of her now that she had blood on her hands?

She pushed the thought aside and examined the laser musket, giving the handle on the back of it an experimental crank. The laser powered up, ready to be fired. She cranked once more and the laser burned brighter. She prayed she knew what she was doing, lest the lives of the settlers who lived inside end up on her hands as well, and entered the Museum of Freedom.

With the help of the dog, she managed to make it to the top floor of the museum with minimal injuries. She grit her teeth in pain as she pulled aside a torn section her vault suit on her midriff. A raider had managed to slice across her abs with a combat knife, leaving a deep gash. She injected a stimpak next to it, watching in amazement at how quickly the wound stitched itself together, leaving a nasty scar roughly three inches long above her navel.

She picked up her weapon and continued down the balcony, keeping it at her side but with the safety off in case this had all been a ploy and the man who had begged for help turned on her.

The dog didn't seem to share her restrictions and he ran forward and straight into the room. She didn't hear shots fired, but she still didn't lower her guard. As she stepped into the room, the man who had asked for her help approached her, his own laser musket in hand.

He was dressed oddly, like he'd stolen the clothes off a mannequin in the Museum of Freedom. To his right, tapping away on a terminal, was a man wearing overalls and a t-shirt. To his left, an old woman in slippers sat with the dog at her feet. Pacing the room was a younger woman while a man sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, muttering to himself and rocking back and forth in front of a desk. Lucy turned her eyes back toward the man as he spoke.

"Man, I don't know who you are, but your timing's impeccable. Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen."

 _Minutemen? So now I'm traveling_ back _in time?_ She kept her thoughts to herself and instead offered a tight-lipped smile. "Glad to help." Or at least, she would have been if helping hadn't involved killing people. Still, she supposed it was going to be the raiders or her and this ragtag group, and she wasn't about to let anything get in her way of saving her child.

Preston seemed a bit taken aback by her answer. "Well if that's true, we could use some more good will. As you can see, we're in a bit of a mess here." Lucy heard the younger woman scoff at Preston's understatement, though she said nothing more.

She lowered her weapon, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "The world's changed so much. None of this makes sense..." she muttered, mostly to herself. Raiders, mutated creatures, and people dressing up like they were going to a historical reenactment weren't exactly what she had been expecting when she was released from her cryopod. Then again, she supposed she wasn't really sure what she _had_ been expecting. She wished she could take a break and try to figure out this new world, but she knew she didn't have the time.

"You all right?" Preston asked, looking just as confused as she was. Before she could answer, he continued. "Listen, we need your help. And then maybe we can help you, huh? What brought you out here?"

She evaded his question slightly, not wanting to give up all her information right away. "Who's around that can find a missing person?"

"Used to have a few good trackers in this group. Not many now," he told her, face falling as he looked around at his small group. "A month ago, there were twenty of us. Yesterday there were eight. Now, we're five. First it was the ghouls in Lexington and now this mess," he explained, voice full of anger.

"Ghouls? What are ghouls?" Just how many horrors had been created since the bomb fell?

The anger rushed out of Preston, replaced with surprise at her question. "Wow, you really aren't from around here, are you?" He paused, drawing in a deep breath. "Ghouls are... irradiated people. Most are just like you and me. They look pretty messed up and live for a long time, but they're still just people."

Lucy covered her mouth, holding back a cry at his explanation. That had to be torture.

"The ones I'm talking about are different," he continued. "The radiation's rotted their brains. Made them feral. They'll rip you apart, just as soon as look at you. Anyway, we figured Concord would be a safe place to settle. Those raiders proved us wrong. But... well, we do have one idea."

"Will it be enough? To stop those maniacs?" she asked, wishing that the raiders would just leave them be. Surely they could loot whatever they wanted elsewhere.

Preston turned his head to the man at the terminal. "Sturges? Tell her."

The man, Sturges, abandoned the terminal and turned around, leaning against the desk and crossing his muscular arms. "There's a crashed vertibird up on the roof. Old school. Pre-war. You might've seen it."

Lucy shook her head, thought it did explain the giant chunk of collapsed roof she'd noticed from the ground.

"Well, looks like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody. We're talking a full suit of cherry T-45 power armor. Military issue."

Nate had worn power armor, and so had the soldiers who'd patrolled Boston before the bombs fell. He'd told her just how instrumental it was to turning the tide against the Chinese, how he'd seen his fellow men and women in battle take grenade blasts and missiles full-on and come out swinging. "That's some serious protection," she replied, wondering why they hadn't obtained it yet.

"Oh, it gets better," Sturges told her, a grin forming. "Get the suit, you can rip the minigun right off the vertibird. Do that, and those raiders get an express ticket to Hell. You dig?"

She assumed he was using the general "you". They couldn't expect her to get into that suit of power armor, right? Surely Preston or Sturges would be much better suited for it? "Huh. Could work," she replied. She hoped it would. It would be easier for her to find Shaun if she didn't have to worry about shooting her way out with a small pistol and the laser musket.

"It'll work," Sturges assured her. "Provided we can reactivate the suit. It's totally out of juice. Probably has been for a hundred years. It can be powered up again, but we're a bit stuck..."

So _that's_ why they hadn't utilized it yet. "I'll help if I can," she said with slight hesitation. She knew the earlier models ran on energy cells, with the later models being switched to microfusion cores. But she didn't have a clue as to where to find one.

Preston chimed in. "What you'll need is an old pre-war F.C., a standardized fusion core. Your high-grade, long-term nuclear batter." Lucy gave a small nod, though didn't interrupt to tell him she knew. "Used by the military and some companies, way back when. And we know right where to find one."

Sturges picked up where Preston left off. "But we can't get to the damn thing. It's down the basement, locked behind a security gate. Look, I fix stuff. I tinker. Bypassing security ain't exactly my forte. You could give it a shot," he told her, looking pointedly at her.

"I don't know. We'll see..." She'd hacked a few terminals in her time, mostly when she'd got locked out of her own. It wasn't particularly a hard thing to do, especially when they told you how close you were to guessing the password. Still, she didn't know what kind of encryption the terminal to access the door would have, and if she guessed it incorrectly too many times she'd be locked out.

"Well, it's not a no..." Preston said with a disappointed sigh. "Look, if you can get to the fusion core, jack it into the power armor and grab the minigun then those raiders will know they picked the wrong fight. And once they're dealt with, maybe we can see about helping you out."

"I'll... give it a shot," Lucy told him. It was the only shot she had about getting some information about the wasteland that was once Massachusetts.

"Good luck," Preston told her before turning back to Sturges.

The terminal had been surprisingly easy to hack into. She would have thought that the museum officials would have tried harder to keep people away from the source of the museum's power, but she supposed security risks were the last of their worries due to the budget cuts they'd gone through in the last few years they operated.

Fusion core in hand, she returned to Preston's group. "Here you are. One fusion cell, ready to go." She held it out to Preston, expecting him to take it and plug it into the power armor.

"We were hoping that you'd be the one to get in the suit. I never really liked power armor and Sturges was going to stay inside and help defend from up here," he told her.

Her brow furrowed and she took a step back. "Me? I've never operated power armor before." The mere suggestion of her, a lawyer, getting into a suit of power armor was almost laughable.

"It'll take some getting used to, but honestly, you look like you could use it the most. Judging from that vault suit and the tears in it, you don't seem to have a lot of combat experience. Even if it's tough to maneuver, it'll protect you from the bullets."

She frowned, though she couldn't fault his logic. She also couldn't help but be grateful that he seemed to be looking out for her. "I guess I don't have much of a choice then. I'll see what I can do."

Preston nodded and gestured to a door across the room. "That's all we can ask. The door to the roof is that way."

As she headed toward the door, the old woman on the couch caught her attention and waved her over. "Dogmeat sure did find us some help," the woman told her, scratching the dog behind his ears. "Just look at ya'."

The dog's name was Dogmeat? Lucy wrinkled her nose slightly at just how crude it was. If he'd been her dog, she would've gone with something like Rex or Scout. "So he's your dog?" she asked, wondering if this was why he'd been so tame.

"Oh he ain't no dog. No sir. Dogmeat, he's what you'd call his own man." Dogmeat let out a quiet whine and then yawned, laying his head down on his paws."You can't own a free spirit like that. But he chooses his friends and sticks with 'em. He'll stay by you now. I saw it."

Lucy raised an eyebrow slightly, wondering just what she meant. "You 'saw it'?"

"It's the chems, kid. They give old Mama Murphy the "Sight." Been that way for as long as I can remember."

She almost snorted at Mama Murphy's explanation. This old woman thought drugs enabled her to see the future? Instead of scoffing outright, though, Lucy humored her. "What's the Sight?"

"I can see a bit of what was, and what will be. And even what is, right now." It took even more effort for Lucy not to laugh, but she didn't want to be rude. Her maternal grandparents had tried to drill respect for her elders into her from a young age, and just because they were long gone now didn't mean her manners were. "And right now I can see there's something coming. Drawn by the noise, and the chaos," Mama Murphy continued, voice serious and tinged with fear. And it... is... angry."

Despite the fact that Lucy considered all of what Mama Murphy was saying to be hogwash, she couldn't help but find her curiosity piqued. "What is it, Mama Murphy? What's coming?"

"I'm... I'm sorry, kid," the old woman said with a sigh, leaning back on the couch. "I Just don't know. The sight ain't always clear. But believe me when I tell you it ain't a raider." A chill crawled up Lucy's spine and she rolled her shoulders in an attempt to shake it off. "Ah, but I'm tired, now," Mama Murphy continued, folding her hands in her lap. "And if I ain't mistaken, you've got a job to do."

"Right..." Lucy frowned and turned toward the door, glancing back once more at Mama Murphy before she left the room, the old woman's alarming portent clinging to the back of her mind as she stepped out onto the roof.


End file.
